Wednesday, March 30, 2011

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"The Obama administration has drafted new proposals to curb Internet piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement that it says it will send to the U.S. Congress "in the very near future."In the period from 1920 to 1933 sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were banned nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.Prohibition stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized and widespread criminal activity.Prohibition created a black market that competed with the formal economy, which already was under pressure.Rather than reducing crime it seemed prohibition had transformed the cities into battlegrounds between opposing bootlegging gangs. Additionally, theft and burglaries increased by 9%, homicide by 12.7%, assaults and battery rose by 13%, drug addiction by 44.6% and police department costs rose by 11.4%. It has been speculated that this was largely the result of “black-market violence” as well as law enforcing resources having been diverted elsewhere. The cost of enforcing Prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on alcohol affected government.Prohibition was known as The Noble Experiment. The results of the experiment are clear: innocent people suffered; organized crime grew into an empire; the police, courts, and politicians became increasingly corrupt; disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance—alcohol—increased dramatically, year by year, for the thirteen years of this Noble Experiment, never to return to the pre-1920 levels. You would think that an experiment with such clear results would not need to be repeated; but the experiment is being repeated; it's going on today.

Enforcing the copyright law would cause the contrary of what they are aiming to.Admitting that it could be effective it would reduce the request of broadband.The need of broadband is directly consequence of the availability of content.And broadband is business.Prohibition only makes it more alluring.